These images are from a project called In My Skin about young people under 25 in the UK who are challenging their body image.
I am looking at those who have had or are considering having cosmetic surgery in order to become more acceptable to themselves and achieve their ideal of being "beautiful."
Social consensus in Western society today is particularly focused on physical beauty and achieving and maintaining the "perfect" face and body.
Intertwined with this I am also documenting body dysmorphia as young people try to conform to this social expectation, resulting in eating disorders and body transformation.
Lastly, I am documenting transgenderism and the struggle young people have to live within a body they were born into but have no affiliation with.
— Michelle Sank
Award winnerIn My SkinMichelle Sank’s project looks at young people under the age of 25 in the UK who have had or are considering having cosmetic surgery in order to become more acceptable to themselves and achieve their ideal of being “beautiful”.View Images
Award winner
In My Skin
Michelle Sank’s project looks at young people under the age of 25 in the UK who have had or are considering having cosmetic surgery in order to become more acceptable to themselves and achieve their ideal of being “beautiful”.
In My Skin
Michelle Sank’s project looks at young people under the age of 25 in the UK who have had or are considering having cosmetic surgery in order to become more acceptable to themselves and achieve their ideal of being “beautiful”.
Trending this Week
Experimental Relationship
Pixy Liao started using her boyfriend as a “prop” in her photos, but that evolved into an ongoing 12-year project documenting their unconventional relationship, resulting in some eye-opening images.
Announcing the LensCulture Art Photography 2018 Award Winners!
Discover 38 award-winning artists who are making remarkable art photography from cultures around the world right now.
Call Me Heena: Hijra, The Third Gender
“I feel like a mermaid. My body tells me that I am a man but my soul tells me that I am a woman…” A penetrating, multi-year report on a unique group of people—who fall outside of Western notions of gender—trying to carve out a...
Familie Werden
In Rie Yamada’s absurd investigation into the family album, the photographer restages family portraits, putting herself in every role.
An Elegy for the Death of Hamun
For more than 5,000 years, the Hamun Lake in Iran was the life source of its surroundings, but it has changed radically as it suffers the destructive effects of an 18-year drought.
All I Know Is What’s On The Internet
A new show at The Photographers’ Gallery questions our relationship to the rapidly-evolving digital landscape.
Related
Blemished Eye
Executed with “erotico-mystical heat,” these visceral, voyeuristic portraits plumb the depths of the photographer’s relationship with his model and muse—who is also his wife.
The Last Book
Replaced by iPads, smartphones, earbuds and kindles—when and where will the last printed book be spotted? Photographer Reinier Gerritsen documents this endangerd species on the world’s subways.
Previously on Hans Lucas #11
A poetic mix of text and disparate yet strangely resonant single images, complete with short stories from each of the photographers that help tie them all together.
Youth Denied
More than one million immigrants (many adolescents or barely over 18) are scrambling to stay alive in Greece — kids who have not been able to experience their youth.
Fleeting Truths: Thoughts on Portrait Photography
A wide-ranging discussion with one of the world’s leading curators of portrait photography—touching on temporality, identity and the changing nature of the medium itself.
Walden
A beautifully photographed meditation on our relationship with nature, told through one of environmentalism’s most sacred places: Walden Pond.